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Lub Letters from Japan: Raymond's TGS 2004 Blog

Well that was quite the trip! The flight over was actually the most pleasant part. It was a pretty smooth ten hours. Surprisingly, I didn't sleep a whole lot on the flight, which is unusual since I have superhuman airplane-sleeping powers (I always manage to pass out on the flight from Orange County to LAX!). Instead of sleeping, I caught 21 more Pokemon in Leaf Green and watched two really bad movies (The Whole Ten Yards and Raising Helen).

I got to sit in the upstairs section of the plane for the first time in my life. Disappointingly, it wasn't the wild cocaine party (complete with lingerie-clad flight attendants) that I've always imagined it to be. Still, it was pretty neat and really roomy up there...which makes my lack of sleep even stranger. Weird.

We (including Ben and Ryan) got into Narita around 2:20 or so. Customs took like 30 minutes and we had to wait another 30 minutes to get the bus to the hotel. Traffic got pretty bad towards the end of the bus ride and I started getting really antsy. I really just wanted to walk around and bounce or something. It took two frickin' hours, but we finally got to Ikebukuro.

As far as I can tell, the bin on the left is for balls, Doritos, and envelopes.

We were on a mission to stay awake and get used to the time zone, so we immediately ran out to get some food. The first thing we saw when we walked out of the hotel was Mos Burger! Ben's never had it before so Ryan and I quickly forced it upon him. We then explored Ikebukuro for a bit (I haven't been here since '99) before heading to the convenience store for some delicious Japanese beverages. I've already made a few new beverage discoveries and will send pics soon.

Next we went to Shinjuku to catch a real dinner with Andy from Game Informer and Billy from Planet GameCube. It was cool to catch up with those guys. Hmmm, at SFO and Narita we hung out with a bunch of GameSpot guys. Ricardo, Ryan, Brad, and Tim are great guys. It's funny that so many people in our Forums think we all hate each other because we're competitors, but for the most part we all get along and in lots of cases we're pretty close. I mean, you spend so much time on the road that some of the other writers are bound to become family. Anyway, we had C&C Curry for dinner and strolled around Shinjuku for a bit before giving up at 10:30.

Ben insisted on going to HMB (Hot Men's Box) in Shinjuku...honestly.

I'm pretty much going to pass out now. I have to be all bright and chipper for our meetings at Square Enix tomorrow. I feel SO tired. I blame it on that two-hour bus-ride. Don't get in too much trouble while I'm gone. You have to save some for us to get into when I'm back!